Bitcoin $6,000 Arrives, A New Record High

Bitcoin finally passed the long-awaited $6,000 mark for single-coin pricing today, surpassing the mark in early morning trading before slightly retreating at mid-day.

Legacy bitcoin began its climb yesterday at the $5,600 mark, reaching the summit today before retracing to the $5,900 level. It was just a month ago that bitcoin first breached the magic $5,000 per single coin price, making predictions that it will soon reach $10,000 or go even higher seem less far-fetched than previously believed.

The momentum behind the coins and the growth of the entire cryptocurrency industry is breaking down even the hard-liners who stand against it in traditional banking and government. It’s called demand, and because there are customers for various forms of cryptocurrency, the nay-sayers are increasingly being sidelined as the bitcoin train rolls on.

Friday’s cryptocurrency market action was focused entirely on bitcoin, as only minor gains were realized by other coins. Ethereum’s ether was holding at $308, a percentage points increase, while Litecoin had a two-percent gain to $61. Monero was up to $91, up slightly over one percent over the 24-hour period.

Losers at mid-day included Ripple XRP, sitting at $0.213394, down more than two percent; Bitcoin Cash, which stalled at $328; and Dash, which was still at the $291 mark.

The Block Tribune Volatility Index, which measures price swings in legacy bitcoin, moved up significantly, sitting at BTVI 62.4 for the last day.

The lowest price seen was $5,606.07000000 on Bitstamp’s exchange at 2:54 am today. Bitstamp’s 24 hour volume was $79,728,100.

The average price on the surveyed exchanges, as weighed by volume, was $5,750.42.

Volatility was greater than average, with the BlockTribune Volatility Index coming in at 62.4. A higher number indicates greater price volatility with 50 describing an average day.

These statistics were consolidated from 5 different exchanges. It includes only USD/BTC trades and only on those exchanges that had at least 1% of the total volume of USD/BTC trades during the measurement period.